Author: Subject of 'There Are No Children Here' hopes to use prison time to write, reflect

June 04, 2012|By Liam Ford | Tribune reporter

(Tribune illustration)

One of the subjects of a classic book on a West Side Chicago Housing Authority complex regrets that he sold heroin and plans to use his time in prison to reflect on his life—and take college courses, the book’s author said today.

Pharoah Walton, 34, was 7 years old when Alex Kotlowitz met him and his older brother Lafayette, and Kotlowitz began the reporting that led to the book “There Are No Children Here,” about the Henry Horner Homes, a now-demolished public housing complex on the West Side. The book was later made into a TV movie starring Oprah Winfrey.

In May, Walton was sentenced to 45 months in prison for his part in a heroin-delivery case that also involved another brother, Raydale Mitchell, who last week was sentenced to 14 years in prison in the case, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Madison, Wis. Walton began serving his sentence last week, Kotlowitz said. He's in prison in Elkton, Ohio, according to federal records.

After Walton pleaded guilty to the drug charge March 1, Kotlowitz wrote a letter on his behalf to the judge in the case, noting that Walton lived with Kotlowitz’s family from age 12 until he graduated from high school. In the letter, Kotlowitz says Walton is “like a son to me” and asks the judge to “acknowledge the trials he has faced, and the potential he possesses.”

Kotlowitz said today he’s glad Walton “did the right thing” and pleaded guilty, adding that Walton knows “What he did was wrong, and he knows how I feel about it.”

“He’s deeply attached to our two children, and considers them brother and sister,” Kotlowitz said in his letter. “He knows how much he’s let them—and us—down. He knows how much he’s let himself down.”

Prosecutors say officers from a Madison-area drug and gang task force arrested Walton Feb. 24, 2010, in the parking lot of a business on Madison’s east side after he delivered almost 100 grams of heroin. When they arrested him, officers found $10,000 in cash that Walton had received for the heroin, which prosecutors said Mitchell had gotten Walton to deliver.

Walton previously spent time in Illinois prison on a drug charge, and was paroled in 2010.

Walton has been in federal custody for several months, and has been taking the time to read and start writing again, Kotlowitz said. Although the prison where Walton is being held has dormitory-style housing and he won’t have much privacy, Walton hopes to continue with his writing there, Kotlowitz said.

Walton “is truly remorseful for what took place—he’s had time for some reflection,” and hopes to work on college courses while in prison, Kotlowitz said today. Walton attended Southern Illinois University, but that's where "he began to drift," Kotlowitz said in his letter to U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb.

Kotlowitz said he is optimistic about Walton’s chances, especially after seeing, in his work on the movie “The Interrrupters,” about former gang members involved with the anti-violence group CeaseFire, that with the right help some convicts can change their attitudes—and their lives.

“He plans to do what he can to use the time to move forward,” Kotlowitz said.